Joker in the Pack (Romantic Suspense, Completed, Watty Winner)

Chapter 23

I scrambled to the nightstand and grabbed my phone. Who should I call? The police?

Living in London, I wouldn't have hesitated to punch in 999, but out in the sticks, where was the nearest police station? I had no idea. Last time I needed help, Graham had taken over an hour to arrive, and he'd been next to useless when he did.

That left Tate or Nye. Tate lived twenty minutes away, and Nye... I had no idea.

Proximity won out.

"You're through to the voicemail of Tate Palmer. I'm not available to take your call right now..."

Oh, hell. Why didn't he wake up when the phone rang?

"Tate, it's Olivia. Can you call me urgently?" I whispered as another creak came from downstairs.

One option left, and Nye answered faster than Sophie did.

"I think there's someone in the house."

He was all business. "Whereabouts are you?"

"In my bedroom."

"Is the door locked?"

"It doesn't have a lock."

"Fuck. Okay, I want you to drag the heaviest thing you can manage up against it. That's the bed, right?"

"Hold on. I'll try."

"I'm not going to hang up, but I need to get on the other line and send the nearest team to you ASAP. Just try and breathe, okay?"

All very well for him to say—he wasn't the one about to get attacked and murdered in their own home. I shooed Twiglet off the bed and tried to push it over to the door, recalling belatedly how it had taken three of us to get it into the bedroom in the first place. A thunk came from downstairs as I found superhuman strength and slowly slid the thing across the worn carpet. Breathe? I was panting by the time it nudged against the door.

"Have you done it?" Nye's faint voice came from the phone I'd dropped on the chest of drawers.

"Yes, I've moved the bed."

"Now, do you have any kind of weapon up there?"

I thought longingly of the poker snugly back in its rightful place next to the fire. For the first time ever, I cursed my obsession with tidiness.

"I don't think so."

"Nothing heavy? Or a can of hairspray? Deodorant?"

Hairspray! Maddie had left her can of super-hold here after she and Dave dropped me off the other day. I snatched it off the dressing table under the window and clutched it to my chest.

"I have hairspray."

"Well done, babe. The patrol's five minutes out. You just need to hold on until then."

Five minutes. Just one song. A cup of filter coffee. Sex with Edward. It didn't seem like long on a normal day, but when I was a sitting duck with a madman after me, every second stretched into infinity.

Footfalls sounded on the stairs, soft and steady, and I heard a muffled expletive as the intruder hit the noisy ninth step and the creak echoed through the house.

"He's upstairs!" I whispered to Nye.

"Just breathe, babe. My guys are on their way, I promise."

Steps tracked across the landing, and slowly, so slowly, the handle on the bedroom door began to turn. The visitor had come straight to my room, no hesitation. He'd been in the house before, and he knew exactly where he was going tonight.